Still Frames in Your Mind
by Ultrawoman
Summary: One-Shot. When the worst happens and Ellen is killed, Neal knows he has a duty to let Parker know about it.


**A/N: I wrote this a couple of months back but for some reason never posted it. A conversation with my good friend KittyNebula prompted me to post it now. It exists in the same 'verse as 'Fools To Make War' but you don't necessarily have to have read that in order to real this :)**

_**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters from Leverage and White Collar belong to other people who aren't me.**_

Still Frames in Your Mind

He never expected her to make it to the funeral so he wasn't disappointed when she didn't show. Sending her a message the way they had, it was always a long shot, but when Spencer's number proved to be non-functional, Neal only had one choice.

Almost a month after the event, he was down by the graveside, checking on the headstone he and Mozzie had specially made and erected. Ellen would've thought it far too ostentatious, he knew, but she deserved the best. She had meant so much, been so dear, and sacrificed so much. Neal was sure she never knew quite what she had been for him or for at least one other kid who needed a friend and some protection.

"I hate funerals."

Despite the location and the heartfelt sentiment she expressed, Neal couldn't help but smile just hearing her voice again. It'd been far too long.

"I'm just glad you got the message," he said, turning towards the blonde that seemed to have magically appeared beside him. "How are you, Parker?"

"Sad, obviously," she shrugged, eyes fixed on the headstone that stated this was the last resting place of her namesake. "She didn't deserve this."

"I know," Neal sighed, hands sliding out of his pockets as he carefully reached out to his friend's shoulder in a comforting gesture, ever mindful of a bad reaction, even now. "She didn't suffer too much. It was pretty quick, at the end."

Parker nodded, even as silent tears streaked down her face. She didn't cry for much, not even as a kid, Neal knew. This was different, this was the loss of family, one of the few people that both he and Parker looked upon as special, important, irreplaceable. She sniffed hard then, wiped the back of her hand across her face. It was awful to think of Ellen being in a hole in the ground, but Parker wouldn't think of her like that. Turning away from the grave, it was easier to imagine her as she had been, or even as she should be now. Angelic, dressed in white, some place better than here, that was a nice picture, as was the kind smile of a woman who would hold Parker's face in her hands and tell her what a beautiful girl she was, how she was going to break hearts when she was grown.

"She always saw good in me," she said with a dreamy smile. "Nothing I did made her doubt it."

"For a cop, she was pretty understanding about petty crime," Neal agreed with a grin of his own. "And you always were quite the pick-pocket, even before the training."

He held his hand out to Parker then, his fingers making a 'gimme' gesture. She handed over his wallet with a bashful grin, bumping her shoulder against his own.

"Just checking," she told him.

"Never con a con man," he reminded her.

"I don't know, sometimes you can get away with it," she told him with a look.

Neal laughed lightly, threw an arm around Parker's shoulders as they set off walking. She wouldn't take that kind of closeness from many people, not even from him if she decided against, but Neal knew he was safe for now. They might be well grown up from the kids that had met too many years ago and played together under Ellen's watchful eye, but the love remained, the sibling kind of affection that was inexplicably present from that very first day.

"She was proud you chose to take her name, y'know?" said Neal as they headed out of the cemetery and down the street a ways.

"She told me once," Parker nodded that she did know. "I just didn't see her enough the last few years. I never meant to... to abandon her. I got a new family but I never forgot..."

"Parker, she was never mad about that, I know she wasn't," Neal assured her, stopping walking and turning in to face her, his hands at her shoulders. "Ellen loved us, and of course she loved to have us visit, but she also understood we had lives of our own to live. Wherever she is now, I know she's looking down and feeling glad to know that we both have people around that care, that we can rely on if we need to."

Parker swallowed hard in an attempt to clear the lump from her throat, nodding her head that she understood. He was right, she was certain. Ellen was too good a person to be mad at Parker for not visiting so much. She would've understood.

"Hey, Caffrey!" said a voice then, catching Neal off-guard, which didn't happen often. "I know you got a rep with the ladies, but she ain't free for the takin'," Eliot told him with a smirk he couldn't help.

"Eeeew!" said Parker definitely, earning an expression from Neal that was equal parts hurt and amused if such a thing were possible. "I don't... That'd be like kissing Nate or something!" she shuddered.

Eliot opened his mouth to answer that but then closed it again just as fast. There wasn't much in the way of similarities between Nate and Neal, but over the years Eliot had learnt to understand Parker's odd way of phrasing things. She saw both men as family, a father and a brother respectively perhaps, which put them off-limits for any feelings of a sexual or romantic nature. That worked just fine for Eliot, not that he feared the competition, but Caffrey did have a way with the ladies, always had.

"You okay, babe?" Eliot asked Parker then.

"Yeah," she sighed, happily going into his arms for a hug. "I had to come. I can't explain why, I just... I had to."

"I know," he promised, kissing the top of her head. "We headed back now or you and Neal wanna hang out a while?"

"You're both welcome to come back to my place if you want to," Neal assured the couple. "Mozzie will probably be there by now, we could catch up. Maybe drink a toast to Ellen?" he suggested.

"Yeah, that'd be nice," Parker smiled brightly.

"Then let's go," said Eliot, opening up the car door for her.

* * *

Mozzie was engrossed in his work when Neal got home with Eliot and Parker in tow. The little guy didn't even look up from the inner workings of what had to be more than just a watch. Parker smiled wide and crept up behind his chair.

"A man with one watch knows the time…" she said.

"…a man with two is never sure," he finished easily.

Either Mozzie knew Parker was there, which would be incredible given how sneaky she could be, or he was just the calmest person ever. Eliot knew the latter to be untrue, but Mozz had known Parker for years enough, longer than the hitter himself had been able to call her a friend (and lately a whole lot more than a friend). It was possible he really did just know when she was there.

"Little Parker," said Mozzie as he turned in his seat to look at her.

"Hey, Mozz," she greeted him with a grin.

A second later they were engaged in some weird secret hand-shake kind of thing that had Eliot and Neal sharing an odd look, and rolling their eyes in unison for good measure. Mozzie and Parker were just about as crazy as each other in their own special ways, but it was hard to want them to change at all. They were very good at what they did well, and as loyal as friends as anybody could ever be. So what if they were a little eccentric with it? Neal had learnt that all the best people were, and Eliot couldn't exactly say he hadn't found that to be true himself over the years.

"I'll get us all a drink," said Neal then, patting Eliot on the shoulder as he walked by him.

The hitter pulled up a chair at the end of the table. Parker sat down in his lap like the most natural thing in the world, never quitting in her conversation with Mozzie. They were lost in a myriad of stories to be told for quite a while, even as they accepted the drinks Neal brought them with quick thanks and continued on with talking nineteen to the dozen about heists pulled and conspiracy theories invented since they last spoke.

Neal looked mostly amused whilst Eliot looked entirely bemused! Of course when the fun stories ran dry and the alcohol went down alongside the sun beyond the window, thoughts turned to why Parker and Eliot had come here in the first place. Ellen was dead, gunned down for being a good person, for trying to keep others safe. She was brave and bold, that much Eliot knew, though it was years enough since he saw her and he never knew her all that well, not in comparison to Neal who was all but raised by her and Parker who took her turn at being mothered also. It had been a beautiful thing to see his girlfriend so engaged in conversation with Mozzie, alive with the fun and wonder of their adventures and ideas. Now she was so sad and forlorn, her head laid against Eliot's own shoulder.

"Hey, don't think about the end," he advised her, stroking her hair back off her face. "You have all those good memories, right? Focus on those."

"Eliot's right," Neal agreed. "So many of my happiest memories have Ellen in them, and you too," he reminded Parker.

They hadn't spent a massive amount of their childhoods together exactly. It was quite the strange coincidence how all these people had become intertwined over the years. Eliot and Neal knew each other as teens and young adults, crossing paths more than once. Parker had come to Ellen's attention quite by accident and made friends with Neal when they were just kids, then a long time later, after Archie had taught her almost everything she knew, Parker had come to New York and met with Neal and Mozzie who had become the best of friends in the meantime. She ran with the two of them for quite a while and they had been all but unstoppable. The stories from all these times were told in the hours that followed, some had Ellen in them, and others didn't, but that was okay. If not for her, Parker was sure she wouldn't be the same person, she wouldn't even have the name she had gotten so used to now.

"Even though I never met Ellen until a few weeks ago," said Mozzie in the sleepy but happy silence that had fallen over the group, illuminated only by a single lamp and a shaft of moonlight by now. "I can't be anything but thankful that she was around and in each of your lives. Without her, Neal wouldn't be the guy he was, so I might never have met him, and then I wouldn't have met Parker or Eliot. My life would be even more lonely than most orphan kids can boast," he shrugged, feeling suddenly emotional and gulping down his wine in a second.

"Mozz," Neal sighed. "We were all lucky to know Ellen, and to find each other," he said seriously, looking from one friend to two more with a smile. "To Ellen, and to us," he suggested, raising his glass.

Though he had but a drop left in his own glass, Mozzie lifted it anyway. Eliot added his beer bottle to the mix and Parker followed suit. All the glassware clinked together, and then everybody drank what was left of their drinks. Tonight was just one more story to tell later, one more oddly happy memory, another scene of reminiscing that nobody would trade for the world. A sad event brought them to this moment, and yet there was a happier way to look at it. One more time, Ellen had brought them together, all four of them, for better or worse. Eliot at least determined it wouldn't be in vain.

"How close are we to knowing who did this?" he asked Neal, no doubt in anybody's mind as to what he was referring to.

"We're working on it," said his friend with a serious look. "Not that I don't appreciate the offer, El, but we got it covered."

"So far," said Mozzie with a look.

"If you need us, just call," Parker told them definitely, producing a card as if from nowhere, her cell number scribbled on the reverse of what seemed to be a card for a bar in Portland. "We'll always come if we can."

"We will," Eliot agreed, kissing her temple.

"I never doubted it," said Neal with a single nod as he slid the card into his pocket.

He doubted he and Mozzie would need any more help than they already had, but it was good to know these people were available. Neal didn't have much in the way of blood kin, but he always knew he had family around if he needed them. That was clearer to him right now than it had ever been before, and all thanks to Ellen.

The End


End file.
